GOOCHLAND DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE UPCOMING MEETINGS

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Organized by Virginia Civic Engagement Table and hosted by Puneet and Asha Hans. Delegates Debra Rodman (D-73) and Schuyler Van Valkenburg (D-72) will explain what was and was not achieved in this years' General Assembly and all that can be done before the next session to allow our delegates to be most effective in continuing to legislate for Freedom and Justice For All. Wine & light refreshments. No charge. Please bring a friend!

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HOW TO ENGAGE IN BETTER POLITICAL CONVERSATIONS﻿To recap key points from video at upper right:

Polarization is getting worse in our country,that the divide between the left and the rightis as bad as it's been in really any of our lifetimes

Most alarming of all of itis seeing this rising animosity on both sides.Liberals and conservatives,Democrats and Republicans,more and more they just don't like one another.You see it in many different ways.They don't want to befriend one another. They don't want to date one another.If they do, if they find out, they find each other less attractive,and they more and more don't want their children to marry someonewho supports the other party,a particularly shocking statistic.

Empathy and respect.If you think about it, it's the very least that we owe our fellow citizens.

Liberals tend to endorse values like equalityand fairness and care and protection from harmmore than conservatives do.

Andconservatives tend to endorse values like loyalty, patriotism,respect for authority and moral puritymore than liberals do.

Maybe this moral dividemight be helpful for understanding how it isthat liberals and conservatives talk to one anotherand why they so often seem to talk past one anotherwhen they do.

So what would work better?Well, we believe it's a technique that we call moral reframing,and we've studied it in a series of experiments.

Liberals are on board for environmental protection.Conservatives, however,were significantly more supportive of progressive environmental policiesand environmental protectionif they had read the moral purity essaythan if they read one of the other two essays.We even found that conservatives whoread the moral purity essaywere significantly more likely to say that they believed in global warmingand were concerned about global warming,even though this essay didn't even mention global warming.That's just a related environmental issue.But that's how robust this moral reframing effect was.

If you want to move liberals to the right on conservative policy issueslike military spending and making English the official language of the US,you're going to be more persuasiveif you tie those conservative policy issues to liberal moral valueslike equality and fairness.

All these studies have the same clear message:if you want to persuade someone on some policy,it's helpful to connect that policy to their underlying moral values.

Empathy and respect.If you think about it, it's the very least that we owe our fellow citizens.

Robb Willer is a professor of sociology, psychology and organizational behavior at Stanford University. He studies the role of morality in politics. His research shows how moral values, typically a source of ideological division, can also be used to bring people together. His political research has investigated various topics, including economic inequality, racial prejudice, masculine overcompensation and Americans' views of climate change.

Willer has won numerous awards for his teaching and research, including the Golden Apple Teaching Award, the only award given by UC-Berkeley’s student body. Willer's class, "Self and Society," was the highest enrollment class at UC-Berkeley. His consulting clients have included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, the Last Resort Exoneration Project and the Department of Justice.Willer's writing has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, including his op-eds "The Secret to Political Persuasion" and "Is the Environment a Moral Cause?"Willer received a Ph.D from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Iowa. Before becoming a professor, he worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, mover, line cook and union organizer.

Thanks to Margaret Reynolds for letting us know about this great TED Talk.